5.  The applicant company was established in 1997 and has its seat in Trenčín.
6.  In the late 1990s the applicant company commenced proceedings against two major companies, seeking the enforcement of financial claims against the companies through seizure of their shares and transfer of title to the shares to the applicant company.
7.  The companies in question had been involved in arms production and had gone through a restructuring that resulted in a large number of job losses and a high rate of unemployment in the region. The relevant events therefore received media attention.
8.  The judicial enforcement officer (súdny exekútor), A., who had been involved in the enforcement of the claims in issue, was charged with abuse of authority. A. was eventually acquitted of that charge by the Bratislava III District Court (Okresný súd) on 7 February 2003. Criminal proceedings were also brought against other individuals.
9.  Further details concerning the background can be found in the Court's judgment of 2 June 2009 in the case of Borovský v. Slovakia (no. 24528/02).
10.  On 23 September 1998 the applicant company petitioned A. to enforce a claim for payment of an amount equivalent to approximately 2,900,000 euros (EUR) against B., a private joint-stock company. A. subsequently sought judicial authorisation of the enforcement.
11.  On 30 September 1998 the President of the Martin District Court, C., sitting as a single judge, authorised A. to carry out the enforcement proceedings against B.
12.  In the course of the enforcement proceedings, A. seized B.'s movable property and certain shares relating to B. A. attempted to sell the seized property at two public auctions. As the auctions failed, the shares and movable property were transferred to the applicant company at fifty percent of their officially estimated value.
13.  On 20 April 1999 the applicant company requested that the enforcement proceedings be ended, as its claim had been satisfied by the above-mentioned award of property.
14.  In a decision (uznesenie) of 30 June 1999, D., the newly appointed President of the District Court sitting as a single judge, ruled that the enforcement of the applicant company's claim by means of selling the shares was improper (neprípustná). At the same time, judge D. discontinued the enforcement proceedings.
Judge D. observed that the shares had been sold by way of a procedure that applied to movable property. However, as shares were not deemed to be movable property, a different procedure requiring special authorisation should have been used.
The two-page decision was not subject to appeal.
15.  The distribution of cases and organisation of work at the District Court is regulated by a work schedule (rozvrh práce).
16.  The work schedule for the District Court in 1999 was drawn up in 1998 by the then President of the District Court, judge C. According to this work schedule, all enforcement proceedings – including the proceedings for the enforcement of the applicant company's claim – were assigned to the District Court's Ninth Section, which was presided over by judge C. The work schedule provided that judge C. and judge D., who was at that time with the District Court's Seventh Section, were to substitute for each other if necessary.
A copy of the work schedule was sent to the Žilina Regional Court for information on 7 December 1998.
17.  On 21 January 1999 judge D. was appointed as President of the District Court. He occupied that position until 5 June 2002.
18.  On 4 February 1999 judge D. issued an amendment to the work schedule. With effect from 1 March 1999, new enforcement proceedings were to be distributed evenly among eight different sections of the court, including the Seventh Section. Enforcement proceedings that had originally been assigned to the Ninth Section were also to be reassigned and distributed evenly among the eight designated sections. The amendment was worded in general terms without identifying any specific proceedings.
A copy of the amended work schedule was sent to the Regional Court for information on 30 March 1999.
19.  On 30 June 1999 judge D., in his capacity as President of the District Court, issued a decree (opatrenie) reassigning the proceedings for the enforcement of the applicant company's claim to himself.
In the one-page decree, reference was made to section 2(2) and 2(3) of the Administrative Rules for District and Regional Courts (Regulation no. 66/1992 Coll., as amended) (“the Rules”).
The decree formally stated that the reason for the reassignment was “a change in the work schedule” and that the reassignment was made “in accordance with the system of substitution of judges fixed in the work schedule and for the purpose of ensuring the proper functioning of the court”.
20.  In the period between 1 March and 15 July 1999, a total number of 348 cases were reassigned from the Ninth Section of the District Court. Of the total, 49 cases were reassigned to judge D's section and 52, 48, 45, 42, 60 and 52 cases were reassigned to the remaining six Sections of the District Court respectively.
21.  Further amendments to the District Court's work schedule were issued by judge D. throughout 1999, taking effect on 1 June, 23 June, 1 August and 1 October 1999. They were all notified to the Regional Court. Under these amendments, judge D. was in charge of one in seven enforcement proceedings and also continued to stand in for judge C. (on a mutual basis).
22.  The applicant company lodged a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution with the Constitutional Court (Ústavný súd).
It contended, inter alia, that its right to a hearing by a tribunal established by law had been violated by judge D.'s assignation of the case to himself. The applicant company pointed to the fact that the case had been decided by judge D. on the same day that it was reassigned to him. It also alleged that there had been frequent modifications to the work schedule of the District Court in 1999 which had rendered the process of assignment and reassignment of cases uncontrollable, thus leaving room for arbitrariness.
The applicant company also challenged the above-mentioned ruling declaring the enforcement proceedings improper.
23.  On 4 July 2002 the Constitutional Court declared the part of the applicant company's complaint concerning the reassignment of the case to judge D. admissible under Article 48 § 1 of the Constitution. At the same time, it declared the remaining part of the complaint concerning the ruling on the merits inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
24.  In a judgment (nález) of 17 January 2003, the Constitutional Court held, by a two to one majority, that there had been no violation of the applicant company's rights under Article 48 § 1 of the Constitution.
25.  Having received extensive documentary evidence and having held a public hearing, the Constitutional Court established, inter alia, the facts summarised in paragraph 20 above.
The Constitutional Court found that the evidence available indicated that judge D. had made the impugned decree of 30 June 1999 in the context of modifications to the court's work schedule for 1999, in the interests of an equal distribution of cases concerning enforcement proceedings, and in accordance with section 2(2) of the Rules.
The court further held that the fact that judge D. decided the case on the same day that he had given the above-mentioned decree did not, as such, affect the legal framework within which the change in judges had been effected.
The Constitutional Court concluded that the applicant company had not sufficiently substantiated its allegation that the case had been assigned to judge D. in an unjustified manner.
26.  The judge in the minority gave a dissenting opinion. He pointed to the fact that the work schedule of the District Court had been modified several times in the course of 1999 without any acceptable explanation. There was no indication that an objective and transparent method for the reassignment of cases had been established and applied. Moreover, during the relevant period no similar steps had been taken at the District Court to redistribute cases in differing categories despite the far heavier case load in those other categories.